My Two Cents: The Fiscal Cliff

It’s a good thing I saved my final two cents for the end of the year. It looks like many of us are going to need the extra money in 2013.

You’ve just got to love all of the finger-pointing that’s going on in Congress right now regarding the so-called Fiscal Cliff. Democrats are blaming Republicans for the whole debacle and Republicans are blaming Obama and Democrats for their unwillingness to compromise.

As if the whole Mayan thing wasn’t bad enough, last-minute proposals and late night meetings are taking place in the dead of night to offset rising taxes, crashing markets and double-digit unemployment. Not a good way to ring in the new year.

I know this may come as a shock, but I’m going out on a limb here and say that this whole thing isn’t the fault Obama, John Boehner or anyone else in the House or Senate. Sadly, the real reason for this whole pickle we’re in lies with you, me and everyone else who votes.

We continuously bitch and moan about what’s being done in Washington and see polls that show the approval rating of Congress to be in the teens. And yet, every two years (without fail) we continue to re-elect the exact same people we can’t stand.

I borrowed this doozy from Ballot-Pedia showing the results of the Congressional 2012 Elections. Grab a vomit bag before you read them.

That’s right, out of 435 House seats “We The People” voted 349 of them back in. These results show that even though Congress as a whole has an 18% approval rating, we decided that 80% of them deserved to be re-elected.

Even though some of these people spent the last two years riding the Sunday talk show circuit for exposure or ran for president themselves instead of casting important (and necessary) votes for their districts, only 27 of them were doing enough of a bad job for us to get rid of them. Pathetic!

So in 2013, when you’re watching the news or reading blogs that blame Obama or Congress for the mess we are in, consider this chart. Then take a good long look in the mirror and you’ll see where the problem really lies.